Google to label malicious sites as repeat offenders

The tech giant is set to punish websites violating its Safe Browsing standards by applying a “Repeat Offender” tag, eweek reported.

The change, announced in a Google blog post on Nov. 8, is set to begin this week for users of Google Chrome and other browsers. The warning will remain in place for a month and only be taken down if Google believes the site no longer poses a threat.

The “Repeat Offender” tag was developed to combat sites that are intentionally harmful and duplicitous. In the past, those sites would typically remove the security issue after being flagged by Google – but just for long enough to get the Safe Browsing warning removed. Then the initial security issue would pop back up.

“As a result of this gap in user protection, we have adjusted our policies to reduce risks borne by end-users,” Brooke Heinichen, a member of the Safe Browsing Team, wrote in the Google blog post.

Safe Browsing has been available to users on desktop and Android systems since December.